How Farmers Protest Changed Political Equations?

Usually permutations and combinations of political parties resulting in the make or break of alliances is an election-eve development. Such a political realignment is essentially driven by an urge for political aggrandizement unconcerned with the concerns of the people. But, contrary to such political expediency, India’s political spectrum saw a unique rally of political forces behind the farmers’ protest. 

Notwithstanding the accusations of the ruling BJP that the Bharat bandh and the farmers’ protest are opposition inspired, political parties cutting across ideological boundaries rallied for the farmers’ cause. 

The BJP’s allies, AGP in Assam and RLP in Rajasthan, supported the farmers’ demands. The RSS affiliates, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh(BKS) and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch(SJM), have called Modi’s new farm laws pro-corporate. In a blatant departure from one nation one market postulated by modinomics, the BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the state government would only buy the yield of crops of Madhya Pradesh, and if anyone from other states tries to sell their produce in the state, then their trucks will be confiscated, and they will be imprisoned.

The BJP’s time-tested ally in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), walked out of NDA in protest against new farm laws. Yet another BJP ally, Jananayak Janata Party (JJP) of Haryana, is under tremendous pressure from party MLAs to come out of NDA, fearing farmers’ backlash. 

Punjab has seen the convergence of political rivals Congress, AAP, SAD in backing the farmers protest. A similar political convergence was evident across India. The Trinamool and the CPI(M), the TRS and the congress, LDF, and UDF, etc have opposed the new farm bills. 

Therefore, the farmers’ cause has united the parties across the political spectrum. The BJP has to face the challenge if this political expression further consolidates as the farmers’ protest intensifies.

By Prof K Nageshwar

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